Brazil to allow crime reporters to carry guns for protection

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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has signed a decree allowing certain journalists to carry guns for protection.

The move has been criticised by press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontieres), which said the ruling set a “dangerous precedent”.

Journalists who report on crime stories will be one of several groups allowed to carry firearms, according to the decree. The new law is understood to come into effect next month.

RSF, which recorded four journalist deaths in Brazil last year, ranked the South American country 105 out of 180 countries in its 2019 World Press Freedom Index – a fall of three places on the previous year.

The new decree, signed by President Bolsonaro on 7 May, comes four months after he relaxed Brazil’s gun ownership laws.

Bolsonaro argued in a statement (translated from Portuguese) that gun ownership was an “individual right of the one who may want to have a firearm or seek the possession of a firearm”.

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3 thoughts on “Brazil to allow crime reporters to carry guns for protection”

Carry guns for protection? Sounds good to me! Lots of people do this in Texas folks. You see, ‘gun free’ zones are not gun free. And those that break the law to rob and murder don’t worry about breaking the law getting a gun.